The bar owner began ushering people out, and the patrons, mindful of the typhoon, got up to settle their bills and head home.
Only Li Wei remained seated by the bar, deep in thought as he stared at the arrow in his field of vision.
The arrow's glow grew brighter, giving him the illusion that something was about to emerge, yet he remained unmoved and sneered inwardly.
I'm not going. What can you do about it?
The arrow flickered for a while longer, then seemed to realize Li Wei would never follow its guidance and slowly vanished from before his eyes.
The bar owner, who was reinforcing the bar, turned around and saw him still sitting there. Confused, he asked, "What are you still doing here? I'm closing up!"
Having successfully won his battle to skip work, Li Wei raised the glass that still held half a cup of water and smiled. "I haven't finished drinking yet~!"
Crack!
The bar owner wanted to say something else, but the sound of something breaking on the roof made him swallow his words. Cursing under his breath, he rushed back into the bar, pulled aside the curtain, and entered the area behind the shop.
Li Wei unhurriedly took a sip of water, completely ignoring the raging wind outside. After all, he was a man who had seen the end of the world and floating landmasses. What was a little hurricane~ worth mentioning~?
The plump bar owner emerged from behind the curtain carrying a wooden bucket filled with nails and hammers. He had several wooden boards tucked under his other arm, clearly intending to reinforce the roof.
"What are you still doing here? Ah, forget it. Come help!" The hurried bar owner saw Li Wei still lounging leisurely at the counter. After a moment of helplessness, he asked Li Wei for help.
"No, I..."
"Ten dollars!"
"Deal!"
And so, Li Wei and the bar owner formed a friendly partnership, setting up a ladder and climbing onto the roof to reinforce its somewhat aged structure with wooden boards.
If the plump bar owner actually moved around on the roof, the house might collapse before he took more than a few steps. So he had Li Wei go up and reinforce the sections that had been blown apart.
Holding nails and a hammer, Li Wei took the board the fat owner handed him, found a cracked plank that was still swaying in the wind, tore it off, and nailed a new board into place.
After checking the other areas and reinforcing certain spots with nails and metal strips, he finally finished the brief job.
But the fat owner would not hand over ten dollars that easily. Most of the small bar had been built with wooden boards, and because the nearby mountains had shielded the town from such violent hurricanes for a long time, the bar needed a thorough reinforcement.
Only after inspecting and reinforcing the bar inside and out did the fat owner let Li Wei back in and close the bar's front door.
The noise was instantly cut off outside. Li Wei felt completely relaxed, while the fat owner was left panting heavily.
He extended a hand and introduced himself to Li Wei. "Uriel Bruno, owner of Bruno Bar."
Li Wei shook his hand and introduced himself as well. "Clark Kent. You still need to pay me. I only have three cents on me, and even that was lent to me by a kind person."
"God, are you a homeless man?" Bruno, the bar owner, made a gesture as if holding up the world. With a helpless expression, he left his chair, took ten dollars in loose change from the cash register, and slapped it onto the table in front of Li Wei.
In all his years, he had never seen anyone who was broke yet so righteous about demanding payment. Perhaps that was a level of enlightenment.
He turned to take a bottle of whiskey from the liquor shelf, pulled out two glasses, poured one for Li Wei after he pocketed the money, and poured one for himself.
"Have a drink. Since you have nothing, how did you get here? The town isn't very welcoming toward outsiders."
The night was long, and it was not yet the usual closing time. Unable to sleep, Bruno simply started chatting with Li Wei.
Li Wei took the drink and had a sip. His fully mimetic tongue could taste the whiskey's flavor, and if he wanted the pleasant buzz of intoxication, he could disable the filtration system.
Hearing Bruno start the conversation, Li Wei, in a relaxed mood, began making up a story. He fabricated an identity as a novelist traveling the world in search of inspiration. He had stumbled upon this place by chance, lost his luggage and money, and rather than end his journey, had chosen to travel on the cheap.
He pieced together all sorts of experiences into one vivid and thrilling tale after another. Bruno, who had initially been somewhat indifferent, became engrossed in his stories and developed a sense of admiration for Li Wei's fabricated identity.
After finishing his own story, Li Wei once again inquired about the pervert in town who was supposedly into little boys.
He had done nothing and been falsely accused of being into little boys, and specifically little boys with a Southern accent!
Ridiculous!
Even more ridiculous was Bruno's embellished version of the story, which vaguely carried some prejudice. Listening to someone curse him out while still having to grin happily, Li Wei was nearly angered into flipping the table.
Just wait until you see what I really look like. Then you'll know what true terror is!
Just as he was about to say he wanted to rest, the lights in the bar suddenly went out, interrupting Bruno's endless chatter.
"Power outage?" Bruno smacked his lips, rummaged through the cabinet beneath the bar, and pulled out a flashlight. Then he said regretfully, "Looks like we can't keep talking tonight. There's space downstairs. I'll get you a blanket."
Li Wei waved him off. "No need. I'll just sleep on the bar counter for the night. This will go into my novel too. Life is inspiration. You should get some rest!"
He had no desire to sleep with a hairy, burly man!
If it had been a beautiful blonde with a curvy figure, he might have considered it. But as things stood, forget it...
After inviting him several more times, Bruno stopped insisting. He left behind an old-fashioned oil lamp and went down to sleep in the basement.
The hurricane raged all night, filling the inside and outside of the building with loud banging noises. Yet Li Wei rested quite comfortably. Lying facedown on the table felt exactly like those times he worked overtime until he was too exhausted to resist and simply fell asleep at his desk.
Especially when Bruno roughly patted his shoulder the next morning to wake him up, it truly felt like waking up and immediately getting back to work...
"This is a nightmare... No 996!" After waking, Li Wei jolted and muttered so quietly it was barely audible. Only then did he slowly stretch his body and nod at Bruno in thanks.
The arrow appeared before his eyes again, but he still ignored it.
After drinking a glass of water, he left the bar, intending to find a little brown bear in the nearby forest to bring to Anna.
As he passed along the town's main road, he saw several military armored vehicles carrying heavily armed soldiers drive past him. Knowing there was a military base in the mountains, he did not think much of it. Once he left the town, he transformed into his flight form and ascended into the sky.
He used Pulse Sensing to search the forest and see if he could find Little Bear.
He was a man who kept his word. He had to repay the money, and he had to catch the bear!
Hunting was a fun pastime, and he could also test whether Blacklight could get something from a bear.
At this time, most of the town's residents still knew nothing about the accident at a certain military base and continued living their quiet little lives.
The white mist leaking from the military base in the forest was rapidly spreading. Instead of rising upward, it stopped at roughly thirty meters above the ground and did not climb any higher.
As though it possessed a will of its own, the white mist spread toward the town. It was not moving quickly, but it would likely reach the town in about an hour.
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